Night Zero (Book 1): Night Zero

by Horner, Rob

  But Anil had seen the atman, the spirit of the man, return to the body and give it life once again.

  In Hinduism, miracles are more than an event without a rational explanation. They are also gifts to those who witness the miracle, a way to bring about spiritual liberation, substantiate the faith of the believer, and encourage progression toward moksha.

  After witnessing one such return through samsara, Anil was encouraged to seek out more. There were others within the hospital who had reached the end of one phase of the cycle. Perhaps they would also return.

  Resolved, Anil Patel turned and pushed through the door leading from the emergency department to the rest of the hospital.

  “You’re clean, Buck,” Dr. Crews said. “A couple of the stitches busted like you thought, but all-in-all, it doesn’t look too bad. Did they give you an antibiotic earlier?”

  Remembering the shot in the butt that felt like a fat glob of peanut butter going into the muscle, the paramedic replied, “Yeah, Rocephin, I think.”

  “Good. It doesn’t look like any infection’s setting in, but you can never be too careful with a human bite.”

  “Any idea why Buck hasn’t gone all Hannibal Lecter?” Brandon asked.

  “None,” the doctor responded. “But to be fair, Infectious Disease isn’t my specialty. Maybe the guy who bit him wasn’t contagious at the time. Maybe he was but it wasn’t as potent as it is now.”

  “Meaning I might still freak out?” Buck asked, reaching a tentative hand up to his sore ear.

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. I think you were just lucky,” Dr. Crews answered.

  Buck thought about the others who weren’t so lucky. Tonya was back in Room 9, standing on one side of the bed. Her left arm had been pulled through the left side rail, and was handcuffed to Mrs. Butler’s right arm, similarly threaded through the other side. The rails were more than sturdy enough to prevent either woman from breaking free. And though they could deactivate the bed’s brakes and move it around the room, they wouldn’t be able to get it out through the door, not with them stuck on the sides. Mrs. Burleson was likewise trapped in Room 4, only it was both of her wrists handcuffed around a rail.

  None of them had gone down from the medications. It made sense from the perspective that if their hearts weren’t pumping, the meds couldn’t leave the muscle and travel to the brain.

  What didn’t make sense from that perspective was how anyone could be up and functioning, even on a basic level, without a beating heart and lungs providing oxygen.

  None of the three who’d come in sick were technically alive either. Kristie Burleson, Derek Butler, and Sonny Cranston were all dead. They just didn’t want to admit it. Their arms and legs jerked and strained, fighting the restraints. Their heads raised and their eyes—dull and lifeless—tracked movement through the room. They didn’t speak, just watched, but there was something in the way they watched that spooked the crap out of Buck. It wasn’t predatory in a gleeful manner. Their looks said, “I have to bite you, but it’s for your own good.”

  This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

  That’s what it was. It was the sorrowful tone of voice his mother used to use right before she took the belt to his backside.

  “What about China?” Buck asked, wanting to take his mind off the infected people.

  “She’s awake and in good spirits, considering,” Crews answered.

  “Considering she’s lost an eye?”

  “Yeah, that. And Grace did get cut by a piece of glass. I pulled out a small fragment before sewing it up.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Buck said.

  “Let’s take stock,” the police officer said. “We can’t go out the front or through the ambulance doors, but maybe we can find another way out of here.”

  Buck didn’t like looking at Officer Tim any more now than he had when they were discussing Danny. It wasn’t so much a dislike of anything specific, unless you could call it the man’s disregard for less than lethal options. Buck never had a problem admitting a mistake, and he’d learned long ago that it was often necessary to revise an opinion of someone. First impressions could be misleading. But there was something beyond the face that didn’t look even anymore, the left side sagging a little like the man had suffered a small stroke. It went beyond the bruises covering him from nose to left ear.

  It was a toughness, he supposed. An unbending flexibility. Dr. Crews had it too, but his was tempered by experience. The doctor knew when it was okay to bend a little, and when it was time to be hard. Buck didn’t think Officer Tim had learned that lesson yet, that there was a time and place for giving a warning, rather than a ticket, for turning the other cheek, rather than going all eye for an eye in retaliation.

  The policeman had killed two of the crazed people, folks who were already dead by any clinical definition. He may have saved lives in doing so, but it was too early to judge that. In both instances, the dead guys had been coming for the cop, not anyone else.

  Did that mean something? Were these things smart enough, even in death, to comprehend the greater danger posed by a man with a gun? Or was there some other reason why they’d both focus on the cop and ignore other potential targets?

  The cop had been rolled to the center of the open area between the nurses’ station and rooms 15 and 16. He remained in his wheelchair, and Buck felt a momentary twinge of guilt that he couldn’t find it in himself to be more sympathetic. The guy’s face really was fucked up, and there might be something more than a concussion working in his head. He’d set the pistol in his lap, so his hands were free, but the left one kept straying to his left eye, almost like he was trying to hold it in, or maybe just apply some pressure. But the man hadn’t uttered a word of complaint that Buck had heard.

  “Can I get out of these now?” China asked.

  Josh looked a question at Dr. Crews, who nodded, though not without a glance at the cop. Officer Tim might not have taken complete control of the department, but it was obvious he’d earned the doctor’s respect, at least.

  The petite Asian girl had a bandage like Buck’s, all gauze and Coban running around and around the skull, though hers was made to hold padding over her right eye, instead of the ear. Her eye wasn’t gone, not in the literal sense. James hadn’t pulled it out. But he had popped through the tough, fibrous sclera, releasing a large amount of the thick, viscous fluid within the globe. It looked a little deflated, Tina said, a little sunken in, though it retained much of its shape.

  Grace and Rose stood near Angelica, while Jessica and Jordyn both helped free China from the ankle and wrist restraints.

  “Okay,” Officer Tim said. “By my count, we have sixteen people here and—”

  “Where’s Dr. Patel?” Tina asked.

  There were no immune in radiology. All had become. The same held true of the laboratory personnel, though one become had put up a fight, slashing another newly become several times with a broken beaker. His face didn’t bleed, but there were pieces of it hanging off like strips of skin not quite torn free of a chicken breast. Now grown from one to a group of ten, Austin set them to searching the dark corridors of the hospital, away from the populated wards, looking for other possible ways into or out of the facility.

  He’d felt two become cease to be in recent minutes. And though he didn’t know how they died, couldn’t see through their eyes so much as experience through their minds, the prospect of a vulnerability made him concerned. The horde outside the emergency department conveyed the impression of a large group of those who had not yet become congregating. And where man congregated, he planned. The become could plan without the need for such groupings.

  The one called Kenja tore through ICU with ease. There were only two nurses on duty there, and they allowed her to get close without question. It helped when the become weren’t too damaged to pass for normal. Three patients languishing in some form of slumber were also his to command now, their failing bodies permanently relieved of any illness or perceived
weakness. There was no exit to the outside from ICU. Austin sent those five to the crossing corridors, mobile eyes and ears for any possible breakout from the emergency department.

  Finally, there was the medical-surgical department, where the staff was his to command, though many of the patients, more mobile than their intensive-care counterparts, were hiding in their private bathrooms, doors locked. Some of them had phones and were desperately calling friends and family for help. Anyone who came would end up joining the press of become outside, but of course they couldn’t possibly understand that.

  Before their disappearance from his consciousness, the ones called Gus and James had made Austin aware of a special one in the emergency department. Like himself and Danny, this one was different. He wondered why he hadn’t known it before, when the one was ripe for the taking. Perhaps his senses were still becoming, though his body already had.

  Then the door to the morgue opened.

  One had come to him.

  “Vishnu protect me,” the little brown-skinned man whispered.

  Austin had a vague recollection of the man’s voice, though it came through a dense fog, something heard while he suffered through the pangs of becoming.

  The man walked forward, head craning left and right, like a bird checking out a shiny object, dark eyes shining with curiosity.

  “You were dead,” the man said. “We coded you for twenty minutes.”

  The words had meaning. Austin could understand them. He found pleasure in hearing.

  “Look, the marks from the defibrillator are still visible on your chest.”

  Austin looked down and became aware of his nakedness. This would never do. It wasn’t a matter of shyness or embarrassment. He had places to go and things to do, as the old saying went. He would need clothes.

  “And none of the blue and red,” the doctor said, still talking to himself. “Is that because you were a catalyst? You cause change by being change?”

  The questions created a desire to answer.

  Austin opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged.

  Of course. He might not need to breathe in order to be, but his vocal cords needed a flow of air in order to vibrate. Without vibration there could be no sound.

  Something that had never needed thought now required a conscious act.

  Austin pulled air into his lungs and forced it back out.

  “I am become,” he said. The words were barely above a croaking whisper. His throat felt rusted, like a door on a sunken submarine long unused.

  The doctor froze in place.

  “And now I must share,” Austin added, reaching out and grabbing the darker man by his shoulders.

  “How many weapons do we have?” Tim asked. “Be honest. Now isn’t the time for holding out because you think you’re going to get in trouble.”

  The one whose gun the old guy stole, Jessica, gave him a look that might have castrated him if his testicles were eggs, but Tim chose to ignore it. He’d been following protocol then, removing the weapon used in a homicide from the scene of a crime.

  “I’ve got a nine-millimeter in my car,” Karen offered. Both Brandon and Josh turned a stunned look on the older nurse. “What?” she said, cheeks reddening. “I’ve got a permit.”

  “That won’t do us any good,” Tim replied. “Anyone else? Anyone with a weapon in here?”

  Reluctantly—and only after looking at each other—both Rose and Grace raised their hands.

  “Seriously?” Brandon asked. “Do I work in an NRA chapter?”

  “No, but you do work in Gaffney By-God South Carolina,” Rose said.

  “And your sweet ass might be safe,” Grace added, “but mine is protected by Smith & Wesson.”

  “Amen, sister,” Angelica added.

  “Are you carrying too?” Brandon asked.

  “Everywhere but here,” the secretary replied. “Here, I keep it locked up in my locker.”

  “What about you two?” Tim asked of the receptionists.

  “In my purse,” Grace said.

  “Mmm Hmm,” Rose added.

  “And that’s where?”

  Grace looked down. Rose did the same.

  “You left them in Reception, didn’t you?” Tim asked, trying hard to keep his voice calm.

  “I have a Three-Eighty Walther in my bag in the Doctor’s Lounge,” Dr. Crews said hurriedly, trying to spare the women any further embarrassment. “And Dr. Wayne keeps a pair of brass knuckles in the desk.”

  “Oh, my Gawd!” Brandon exclaimed.

  “I wondered who those belonged to,” Tina said. “How’d he get them?”

  Dr. Crews cleared his throat. “The way he tells it, someone tried to scare him one time by coming up behind him and setting one of the knuckles against the back of his neck, like it was the barrel of a pistol. So, he turned around, holding an actual pistol, and told the guy to drop his weapon. Now he’s got a set of brass knuckles to go with his brass balls.”

  Tina laughed, as did everyone else except Tim and the little CNA, China. Tim’s head hurt too much for laughing, and he assumed her reason was the same.

  “Anyone else?”

  No one said anything.

  “So, we’ve got three pistols we can access, including mine, and a set of brass knuckles.”

  “Dibs on the knuckles,” Buck said.

  “You can have ‘em,” Dr. Crews replied. “You might be the only one who can stand toe to toe with those things.”

  “Well, me and China, at least so far,” Buck said.

  “Is there anything else we can use?” Tim asked.

  “What about your Taser?” Billy asked. “I saw it when I went diving for the cuffs.”

  If Tim’s head didn’t hurt so much, he’d have slapped himself for forgetting his secondary weapons. Instead, he said, “Good. I’d forgotten about it. I also have a collapsible baton and a punch knife, though I’d hate to have to get close enough to use it.”

  “There’s a fire ax in the wall, with the water hose,” China said softly. “I used to wonder why we had an ax, when there are sprinklers and all the other safety things in here.”

  “I remember when you asked about that,” Brandon said softly. “And I told you it probably won’t ever be needed, but just in case everything else fails, that ax is there to bust glass or chop down doors.”

  “Okay,” Tim said, “so we’ve got three guns, a Taser, a baton, an ax, and some brass knuckles. Can anyone think of anything else we might use as a weapon?”

  No one answered. For a moment, the only sounds were those made by the crazy people. No yells, screams, or grunts. Just banging. People banging on the doors between the waiting room and the department, or those outside banging on the glass doors trying to get in. There was banging from several rooms as well, as those restrained to the beds or to each other tried to work their way free.

  “All right. Dr. Crews, Angelica, can you go retrieve your weapons and bring them back here, please? Brandon, you look like a strong guy even when you aren’t being prissy about guns. Are you willing to swing my baton?”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth, Tim regretted them.

  But Brandon laughed, and if he took the question as a pun about his sexuality, he rolled with it. “Just put it in my hand, big boy, and leave the rest to me.”

  “I’ll come with you, Angie,” Caitlin said. “Keep you company.”

  “My partner went to the morgue with Marcus,” Tim said. “I can’t reach him on the radio, and I can’t leave without trying to find out if he’s okay. I’d make the trip alone if I could, but I don’t know the way and I’m afraid if I try to walk, I’ll just end up falling.”

  “You asking for a volunteer?” Billy asked. He had the police officer’s Taser in his right hand. “I’ll push you, if that’s what you need.”

  “We should probably try to stay together,” Brandon said.

  “We can’t,” Dr. Crews replied. “There are fifteen of us and not enough weapons. Some of you need to ma
ke a break for the exits, try to get away.”

  “Us, you mean?” Tina asked.

  “No, you. Tim wants to go check on his partner. I respect that, even if I think it’s foolish.” He held up a hand to soothe the police officer. “These things attack. They aren’t going to be holding him hostage somewhere. He’s either dead or one of them, and I honestly don’t know which is worse, but there it is.”

  Tim’s face hardened. There wouldn’t be any changing his mind.

  “I intend to head to Med-Surg and try to convince those nurses and as many patients as I can to leave with me,” Crews continued. “They have their own exit from the hospital and it’s on the opposite side of the building. We might be able to get out that way.”

  “I’m with you,” Buck said.

  “I’d like a few more of you to come as well. Between me and Buck, I figure we can keep four or five of you safe.”

  “That sounds like a good number for each group,” Karen said. “I’ve got my pistol, and Angelica’s got the ax, but I can’t think of anywhere else to try to escape.”

  “What about the old Maternity wing?” Brandon offered. Beside him, China smiled.

  “Where’s that?” Dr. Crews asked.

  Brandon laughed. “None of you remember it? It’s an entire wing over by the cafeteria. We stopped using it when we stopped delivering babies, but every CNA knows where it is. Who do you think took all the “My tummy hurts” pregnant ladies over there when they came to the ED?”

  “We did,” China said.

  Dr. Crews thought for a moment. “That puts it…what…on the north side?”

  Brandon nodded. “More or less. It exits out on the same side as the morgue, though you gotta go a different way to get to it.”

  “I’ll go that way,” Karen said. “Who’s up for making the run with me?”

  In the end, four people decided to run for Med-Surg with Buck and Dr. Crews: Tina, Grace, Rose, and Jessica. Josh elected to go with Officer Tim and Billy. He said someone needed to push the wheelchair, and it might as well be him. Brandon, China, Jordan, Caitlin, Angelica, and Karen set out for the old Maternity Wing.